[3:25pm]Marc Topkin has some quotes from a story on Carlos Pena in this week’s issue of Sports Illustrated. Within the story is this quote from Carl Crawford, essentially confirming what many of us already suspected. That this will be the last season for both Crawford and Pena in a Rays uniform…

“This core group is going to still be together, me and Carlos are the only two guys that are going to be leaving,” notes Crawford, perhaps giving away more than he should. “We definitely feel like this is a special year for us, and we would like to do something good.”

This is the reality folks. It sucks. The train is coming, and there is no way we can get out of the way. At least we can applaud CC for being honest.

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On behalf of lazy baseball writers everywhere, I'd like to thank Sports Illustrated for this latest excuse to fire up another copy of the "Rays have attendance problems" story. Editors across America will be ecstatic.

There was a small part of me that was still holding out some hope that Carlos would take a hometown discount, even under the shadow of Scott Boras; then Ryan Howard's contract extension took that small part of me and ran it through a wood chipper Fargo-style.

Happy they are on the team and playing hard this year. Would love to see something special (who wouldn't?) Living in the Bronx and wearing Rays gear is dangerous enough, I want it to be even moreso come October (well, November, but you know what I mean).

I've got nothing wrong with how the Rays are operating. This is the best small market ball the league will ever see

We all know there's a good chance that both Crawford and Pena may be gone; indeed I think there's practically no chance of resigning Crawford, so the only question would be whether they could reach an agreement with Pena.

The reporters are all acting as though Crawford has some inside information about Pena's intentions and he let it spill. It's just as likely that he spoke carelessly (meaning me and Carlos MAY be leaving or are likely to be leaving) without really knowing more about Pena's situation than the rest of us.

Anyway, I would like the free agency issues to be packed up along with the attendance issues, put in storage, and taken out again only when the Rays are so far out of contention that there is really no point in discussing baseball. Otherwise, let's focus on what these two, and the other 23, can do to deliver us a pennant this year.

Carl can test the market and do his thing and get paid. I'd be surprised if Pena can cash in beyond $10-12M a year given his age and his declining numbers and high strikeouts. But both have been great players and give maximum effort. As a fan, I can't complain if someone is going to pay them double.

For both of them, however, I would doubt that the years 2011-2014 will be as good as 2007-2010. So the Rays have kind of maxed out their performance given that CC is a speed guy bound to slow and Pena is an older guy looking at the dreaded age of 33. They key to the franchise in so many ways is Upton. And I'm just not seeing it and now I'm reduced to praying that Jennings and Joyce are real quality big leaguers.

Not so fast. There is a good chance both of them leave but I wouldn't be surprised they keep CC around. They will have Bartlett, Burrell, Pena, Soriano, and CC coming off the books, for a rough estimate of 40mil being spent this year on those four players. Burrell obviously isn't coming back and I doubt Bartlett is back either. MLB is going to want them to spend SOME of that money. Who's to say they won't get a hometown discount from CC, in order to keep that outfield defense and speed going? There isn't going to be much better options out on the market.

Maybe, although CC has made clear that Tampa Bay is not his "hometown." He's from Houston and his off season home, I believe, is in the Phoenix area. Pena is a different story-- not only does he express some gratitude to the Rays for rescuing him from baseball's scrapheap; he also lives in central Florida off season and has talked a lot about how much he enjoys living on the beach in St. Pete.